Studies are continuing on the purification of alcoholic hyalin. This has now been achieved using 6B chromatography. Efforts are now underway to develop an appropriate radioimmunoassay permitting identification of circulating alcoholic hyalin antigen and antibody in the serum of patients with alcoholic hepatitis. It has been shown that AHAg-Ab complexes evoke PMN infiltrates characteristic of alcoholic hepatitis, that lymphocytes inhibit collagen synthesis while supernatants of lymphocytes sensitized to AH increase fibrogenesis, that a deficiency of suppressor cell activity is characteristic and presumably responsible for cytotoxicity in alcoholic hepatitis. During the next year it is expected that a reliable, sensitive and specific radioimmunologic assay will be made available. This will make it possible to better delineate immunopathogenesis of alcoholic hepatitis and its conversion to cirrhosis. Equally important, a practical radioimmunoassay will facilitate detection of subclinical alcoholic hepatitis and evaluation of therapeutic measures currently being used for alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis.